20 years ago, the worst-rated live-action video game movie was released on Metacritic

For many years, the high marks for movies based on video games were the highest Paul W. S. Anderson’s 1995 fighting film “Mortal Kombat” And his 2002 zombie movie, “Resident Evil.” One can see how unfortunate we’d be if these two mediocre films were anything to go by. Adapting video games to the big screen has always been difficult for Hollywood. These films are often criticized as terrible and usually bomb (Kombat and Resident notwithstanding). Instead, it was adapted from the 1993 “Super Mario Bros” film directed by Rocky Morton and Annabelle Jankel. Much loved by an enthusiastic cult of weirdos who love its colorful ideas (a cult I belong to), but most people didn’t like how far the film strayed from Shigeru Miyamoto’s ownership of Nintendo.

There are many reasons why it is difficult to turn video games into good movies. First, most video games rely on action and interaction, while movies are passive and character-driven; The media do not overlap neatly. Many video games also lift their principles from existing B movies anyway, so adapting them back to film feels like making a copy of a copy. (How could “Metroid,” for example, look so different from Ridley Scott’s “Alien?”) Moreover, many modern video games have become so complex that their stories and premise are no longer usable, 120- Movie Packages minute. (Hence, the “Halo” movie was eventually canceled in favor of a TV series.)

But some recent films have bucked this trend. “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” was a big hit at the box office, “Werewolves Inside” was really good, and kids seem to love the “Sonic the Hedgehog” movies. Heck, even the mediocre “Five Nights at Freddy’s” attracted a large audience.

But the mid-2000s was a much different time. It’s time for the “Doom” and “Resident Evil” films from German director Uwe Boll. In fact, Paul made five terrible video game adaptations in the 2000s, becoming famous as one of the worst filmmakers of the modern era.

Of the many, his 2005 film “Alone in the Dark” may be the worst.

The first video game “Alone in the Dark” was released in 1992, but it was only available to play on home computers. It is registered in the Guinness Book of World Records as the first 3D horror game ever. The first “Alone in the Dark” game made for a home console was “Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare” in 2001. Its release increased the popularity of the franchise, so the feature film adaptation wasn’t far behind. The original game was set in the 1920s and had players running from monsters to escape a haunted mansion in Louisiana. The first part was also set in 1920s Louisiana, although the second part was set in California’s Mojave Desert. “New Nightmare” was the first game to be set in the present day. In that game, players had to locate mysterious tablets with sinister and strange qualities.

Inspired by the 2001 game, Boll’s “Alone in the Dark” revolves around various characters recovering magical artifacts of some kind and investigating their connection to a newly emerged group of deadly monsters that are hunting down and killing our heroes. Christian Slater plays a paranormal investigator suffering from amnesia and trying to find parts of his past. Meanwhile, Tara Reid plays a curator at the museum where the film is set, and Stephen Dorff plays a soldier-like agent working for the mysterious Bureau 713.

“Alone in the Dark” features additional twists involving the extraction of monster DNA, as well as multiple scenes of people being hunted by unmasked monsters. The monsters can nest inside human bodies and produce their own electromagnetic pulses, making sure to turn off the lights wherever they go (hence the title “Alone in the Dark”). The fact that the monsters had to be in the dark likely saved the film’s creators a lot of money when it came to visual effects.

No one liked “Alone in the Dark.” It currently has an approval rating of 1% Rotten tomatoes Based on 119 reviews. Ann Hornaday writes for The Washington PostI felt like Paul’s film was bad enough to be enjoyable, but it never quite reached that entertainment threshold, which makes it just bad. Scott Brown writes for Entertainment Weeklygave the film an F, stating that it was so bad, it was considered postmodern. He also described it as a “film-like mass”. Jack Matthews, writing for the New York Daily News, said that “Alone in the Dark” looks like someone wearing a blindfold and picking out something terrible at random at Blockbuster Video… after reaching for the trash. And the Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of punishment Justin Chang writes for Varietyhe said that Uwe Boll should lower his joystick, and quickly.

In August 2024, Metacritic has compiled 42 notable films based on video games Arrange them in order of preference. “Werewolves Inside” was the most popular video game movie, and even that movie only received a positive rating of 66 points. Anderson’s “Mortal Kombat” movie is still highly regarded, as is the recent “Pokémon: Detective Pikachu.” The movie “Alone in the Dark” came in last place with 9 points.

Paul came in poorly across the board on the same list. His “House of the Dead” is ranked 40th, “In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale” is ranked 39th, “BloodRayne” is ranked 36th, and “Postal” is ranked 34th.

Despite his atrocious track record, Paul remains active, able to secure big-name actors in an emergency and complete films quickly and under budget. On a personal level, he is charming and has great ideas. He’s directed two films — “First Shift” and “Bandidos” — in 2024 alone, and has three more in production. This was after Paul said he would retire in 2016. “Alone in the Dark” is pretty terrible, but Paul doesn’t seem to mind. He was about to get to the next thing before she even saw it.